This last week Marvel Comics has been promoting their new event called The Heroic Age. It was hinted last year with a teaser showing Thor, Captain America and Iron Man in shadow. the last few years in the Marvel Universe have been very dark. There was Avengers Disassemble, Civil War, Secret Invasion and the Dark Reign. But in May Marvel will bring in the Heroic Age, There’s going to be a new spirit of hope, courage, and the selflessness at the heart of heroism will rise up. Marvel’s most elite characters will be at the center of The Heroic Age, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and more.

I’m personally excited about the new direction Marvel plans on taking. I grew up reading Marvel Comics and think this new story line will be awesome and full of great adventures. I’ve decided to use my blogging skills and create a fan blog site dedicated to The Heroic Age. I’ll be putting any and all new info up on the site including news, promo art and future Solicitations.

So if you want the latest info about Marvel Comics The Heroic Age check out my Fan site: www.TheHeroicAge.com

-Shazam!

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge! Here’s the 4th quick 30 minute daily sketch. This drawing was done on Friday October 9th of Modok (Mobile Organism Designed Only for Killing) from Marvel Comics. I took one day off the challenge, but came back with a really fun sketch!

The last sketch I did of the Enchantress didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped, she came out a little to stiff. So for this one I decided not to get to stressed and just had fun with it. This was actually the sketch I’d been looking forward to drawing the most. I worked with a H2 drafting pencil and a simple eraser. Started off with very lose lines and adding details alone the way. To be honest this drawing took a little longer then 30 minutes, it too me about 45. But I think that’s ok. My goal with this exercise is to help in speeding my drawing but also to loosen up.

When I started reading comics it was Marvel comics. So I totally knew and have read comics with Modok. Modok’s just a super giant head on a hover chair, that’s fun and cool. I didn’t realized there was such a fanbase for the character. I found numerous websites dedicated to him and Marvel Comics even has an official Modok blog. When Marvel created a new Super-Villain Team-Up limited series, Modok was thee main character. I had lots of fun with this drawing and I think it shows. – Shazam

Check out my other: 30 Minute Daily Comic Sketches

The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge! Here’s the 3rd quick 30 minute daily sketch. This drawing was done on Wednesday October 7th of Amora The Enchantress from Marvel Comics.

This sketch was very challenging for me. It took me a little long then my allowed 30 minutes, about 45. I started with a a real rough sketch using a H2 drafting pencil. I was trying to give her a soft look, but I think she actually looks a little stiff. This is why I’m doing this daily exercise. To help me get a lose and softer drawing style. I find that there is stiffness in my illustrations sometimes when I work on them to much.

The enchantress was one of the first female characters I read in comics. The second comic I ever read was Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars, but it was the 1st series I actively read. I remember hitting all the gas station looking for the latest issue. So it was fun drawing a character I’ve been familiar with most of my comic reading and drawing life.

Check out my other: 30 Minute Daily Comic Sketches

I’ve decided to give myself a daily exercise to help in my drawing skills. I call it The Daily Comic Sketch Challenge. This next week I will be doing a quick drawing for only 30 minutes. These drawing will be of random comic book characters. Not only will I get to draw some different characters, but it will help in sharpening my drawing skills.

Last week I asked for suggestion through my Twitter and DevaintArt accounts on who I should draw. I received a lot of great ideas. Here is a list of which characters I will be drawing this 1st week.

1. Monday: Manhunter IV (Marc Shaw)

2. Tuesday: The Maxx

3. Wednesday: Enchantress (Marvel)

4. Thursday: Modok

5. Friday: Dee-Dee twins (Batman Beyond)

I’ll be posting the new Drawing every day. If you have any suggestion on who I should draw next, please let me know. – SHAZAM!

Check out my other: 30 Minute Daily Comic Sketches

I’ve wanted to be a comic book artist as long as I’ve been reading comics. To be able to play with the heroes I read about. Like most aspiring artists I looked to books to show me the right way to draw comics. How the comic figure is drawn and how to create those awesome fight scenes. I’ve bought and read so many “How to Draw Comic” books I’ve completely lost count. The very first “How to Draw Comics” book I every bought was How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way is a great introduction book to the world of comic book drawing.  Written by Stan Lee and comic artist John Buscema.  This book teaches you the tools and terms used when creating a comic book. From drafting table, pencils, erasers, inking to the definition of a worms eye view.

It covers basic perspective drawing techniques for object, characters, and composition. Probably one of the best books that teaches how to draw characters with 8 half heads. This book has great explanations of the importance of figure exaggeration when drawing action and normal conversation between figures.

The most important lesson I learning from this book was how to draw sequential art, that is how to tell a story through pictures.  It shows the wrong way and the right way, what’s great about these examples is it shows you different ways to tell the same story though panel drawings.

If you are interested in learning how to create a comic book, the basics of comic book drawing or know some one who does I would totally recommend How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

I give this book a 5 out of 5 pencils rating:

I’ve received several requested to show the steps I used to create my digital inking of the Fantastic Four pin up I did of artist Ariel Padilla’s pencils.  I was looking for some art to ink and found the pencils on his DeviantArt page. This was a practice exercise I gave myself in the inking process of comic book art using Adobe Illustrator. I’ve been a graphic designer for over 9 years but this was the first time I used my design knowledge for comic book inking.

Points & Paths: Example 1

For this self assignment I decided to use Adobe Illustrator for inking the pin-up. I had used photoshop for a previous piece earlier I did of Batman 2.0, a character redesign. I had fun with that illustration but this time I wanted to do this digital inking in vector format. Why choose vector verse bitmap? Well in a vector image it is made up of anchor point that are connected by paths (lines) that connect them. A vector image can be re-sized without loss of quality to the illustration. So basically you can re-size the image as small or as large as you’d like without pixelation, it will keep it’s sharpness no mater the size.  Which is really neat.

Points & Paths: Example 2

For this illustration I choose to use my anchor points to create only straight paths (lines). I didn’t use any curved lines. The cool thing about using anchor points and paths is that you can make curved paths, resulting in less points This is shown in Points & Paths: Example 2. So why didn’t I use curve paths? Well honestly it was a self exercise to see if I could do it. I wanted to create the curved lines through straight lines. I found it to be a fun challenge.

Points & Paths: Example 3

I did not create lines or outlines of the original pencils. What I did was look at each line as a shape. I could have easy used the brush tool in Illustrator, but I found I actually had more control of what I wanted to achieve by using the pen tool.

With the technique I like to use of anchor points and paths I am able to get a type of jagged smooth shape. The strength of anchor points is you can use as many or as little points as you’d like to create your lines or shapes. I’ve illustrated this in Points & Paths: Example 3.

Points & Paths: Example 4

After I created the shape from the pencils, I colored it in with black. I’ve shown this in Points & Paths: Example 4. As you can see it’s a piece of a puzzle that makes up the inking. These shapes help to create the feel I was looking for when digitally inking this drawing. This technique really works well when inking the Thing’s rocky skin.

I have included more example of the anchor points and paths technique I use in inking these pencils. In Points & Paths: Example 5, we see how the wavy fire on Human Torch can be created without using curved lines. Every anchor point in the flames helps to create the illusion of line weight, depth, and movement.

In Points & Paths: Example 6, I’ve shown how I created what looks to be a line on the Invisible Woman’s arm. It is actually a curved shape created with paths. It is a shape that includes the bottom line of her arm and the shadows around her neck. You can see her hands and the background are already colored in.

Although this technique might not seem to be the most efficient, it allows for a lot of control. Looking at each line as a shape helped me to create a type of line work I would not have achieved otherwise.

Points & Paths: Example 5

Points & Paths: Example 6

This was my first comic book digital inking using Adobe Illustrator with the anchor points and paths technique. I have done a few more since this one. Although I have used curved line in those illustrations. This was a fun self exercise in learning to digitally ink the work of some else. I am very happy with the way this illustration came out, and I’ll continue to use Adobe Illustrator to digitally ink comic book pencils.

A few months ago I was vising my moms house where I found a box of old drawings I did when I was a kid. There were drawings I did of Veritech fighters from Robotech to comic book and super heroes. Last night I was looking though theses treasures from my childhood. I had a blast remembering how I’d stay up late, looking at my comics and wanting to create and recreate these awesome art works. One of the drawing that jumped out to me last night was this one of Iron Man. I drew this 20 years ago in 1989 when I was 14 years old.

In the late 80’s I was reading all the Marvel Comic I could get my hands on, but Iron Man was on the top of my favorites list. I’m a huge science fiction fan and Iron Man was a perfect meld of Sci-Fi and Comics. This drawing was a recreation of the cover of Iron Man 244, it was originally drawn by Bob Layton. I remember being blown away by the split screen showing Iron Man’s then current suit and his original grey one. I had to redraw it. So this is not a tracing, but a recreation of a cool comic cover. This is how I learned to draw. I’d look at a comic and try to recreate it. I didn’t take any art class when I was young, but I loved to draw.

Looking at this drawing I did as a bright eyed kid so many years ago really reminded me of the passion I had for comic book art back then. I feel very lucky that as an adult I haven’t lost that passion. I plan on posting more of my childhood drawing up, so keep an eye out. -PoW, Zap, Zooom!

I was very fortunate to be able to attend the “MOVIES, GAMES, AND COMICS PANEL” this weekend at the Albuquerque Film Festival 2009. The speakers on the panel were T.Q. Jefferson: the Marvel Comics Director of Games, the Eisner-nominated Pander Brothers: Jacob and Arnold Pander, and a writer/director from Rogue Taurus Productions. It was a great relaxed panel where they told us about how they work with the story, licensing and marketing of their projects.

T.Q. Jefferson from Marvel Comics showed us a trailer to the new Iron Man 2 video game, which by the way rocked! He also showed some awesome character design concept art for Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo. He explained how the video game and the movie are both coming from the same place, but can still stand equally on their own. The story in the game is not a retelling of the new movie, but just a new adventure with the same characters and spirit from the movie. The game has been in development for over a year now, so the creators know the general idea of new movie but not the whole story. He hinted that the games for both the Thor and Captain America movies are already in development too.

I had missed seeing the the Pander Brothers last year when they came to the Santa Fe Film Festival with their award-winning identity theft thriller SELFLESS, so it was a nice surprise to see them on this panel. Jacob and Arnold Pander are both well established comic book writers and artists. They have worked for both Marvel and  DC, in film, video, animation design and illustration. Arnold Pander talked to us about his newest project Tasty Bullet, a graphic novel he’s working on with Jonathan Vankin. We got to see a really cool trailer for the graphic novel too. He also explained what type of promotions they have planned to bring readers to the book, including an ARG (Alternate reality game) and the creation of vintage commercials for the tasty drink. The graphic novel will be published by Image Comics.

Rogue Taurus Productions is an independent film company based in Albuquerque, NM. They have created several movies which were filmed in New Mexico. It was interesting to hear the writer/director from Rogue Taurus assessment that comics, video games and movies all come from the same place. The desire to tell a compelling and interesting story. He commented on how the beginning process are similar to each other, but they create completely different story telling mediums.

This was a great panel and I really had a fun time listening to what they had to say. I learned some new information regarding the creative writing process when it comes to licensing of properties. Thanks to the Production Central ABQ for hosting this panel through the Albuquerque Film Festival 2009.

Thor - digital inks of my pencils

Here are my digital inks of Thor, the God of Thunder. He’s one of  Marvel Comics main characters. A founding member of the Avengers and actually in the very first comic book I ever read. This is his new costume he’s wearing in his new monthly title.

This was a pencil drawing of Thor I did last week. It was a quick drawing using an HB wood-less Ebony pencil.  I traditionally use an H6 pencil for light tight penciling. For this I actually was able to achieve good detail with the softer lead. It’s good to get out of your comfort zone and try different drawing tools.

I inked this drawing digitally using Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t do it in one sitting. I took my time and did it in small spurts during the week. (Usually watching a Netflix movie on the side). I’ve only just recently started inking my drawings on the computer, which is ironic because being a Graphic Designer for over 10 years you’d think I would have done it years ago.

I like using Adobe Illustrator for inking, I know a lot of people use photoshop which is a great software too. The reason I use illustrator is because I like saving my inks as a vector image. Vector images are great because there’s no worries about pixelation. They are always super high resolution even if it’s reduced or enlarged.

For this inking I only used the pen tool with my mouse or Wacom tablet. It helps to give me the look I want to achieve. I like the sharp edges and thick to thin lines I get with it. There’s an amount of control I feel I have with the pen tool. I think in my next digital inking I will use only the bush tool. Like I said earlier it’s always good to try different tool. I plan on coloring this inks in the near future using Photoshop.

Thor - pencil drawing by Ralph Contreras

Here’s a pencil drawing I did of Thor the God of Thunder from Marvel Comics. It’s his new costume he’s been wearing since his return to his own monthly title.  Which by the way is a very excellent read.

This drawing started off as me just sketching while watching a movie, but became more detailed as I got into the drawing. I totally lost interest in the movie. I have recently been drawing mainly with an H6 Staedtler wood pencil, but for this drawing I decided to try a different lead. I actually used a much softer pencil, an HB wood-less Ebony.

I tried not to sharpen the pencil or use an eraser much. I started off with a very light sketch and build on top of it adding details and shadows. The lines on this drawing are much thicker then I usually do. Using a softer lead was a challenge for me, but I really like the results. I’m excited to digitally ink this in Illustrator. I will make sure to post the inked version when I’m done.